I’m not planning to bore you with a daily play-by-play of my meals. But in the interest of accountability, I thought I’d share a bit with you. Hopefully as we get further into Lent there’ll be some great new recipes I can share!

I had my usual Avocado Egg Toast for breakfast. Yes, I am dull. Yes, I really do eat this almost every day. It works for me. For lunch, leftover cheesy grits with Swiss chard and leeks, and minestrone for dinner. Normally I would use chicken stock for the minestrone, today I used juice from the tomatoes and water and it turned out just fine. As with most soups, it was easy to make a ton of minestrone. Probably more than we’ll ever eat, so I’ll freeze some for a night when there’s just no time. I don’t use a recipe so if you want to make some here’s a recipe that’s similar to how I make it. It’s a great, easy soup. Feel free to put in or take out anything you want.

I refuse to go to the grocery store on the weekend. It’s crazy town in there. When I went today I had a general idea of what we’d need for the weekend. Here’s what we’re planning to eat.

Friday night – I will probably end up eating alone, but I thawed a spinach lasagna that I had tucked away in the freezer. It’ll be good for me when I’m ready to eat and will hold til the husband-like-person returns. This is the recipe I use.

Saturday – Leftovers will work for lunch time. Since the weather is supposed to be better we might head to a local winery and take a picnic. We often have a cheese plate for dinner when it’s just the grown-ups, so wine and cheese will do fine for us Saturday evening. I bought some new cheeses to try. If they work out I’ll share the names with you. I’m also planning to make this tasty Greek pasta salad from a recent Joy the Baker post to eat for lunch next week.

Sunday – I’m super excited to try this new recipe for Stuck Pot Rice from Smitten Kitchen. As a young child I lived in Stuttgart, Arkansas, the Rice and Duck Capital of the World. I am not making this up. In that part of Arkansas you eat rice. You LOOOOOVE rice. There are entire cookbooks and festivals devoted to rice. It’s what keeps the town alive. Well, that and duck hunting. Rice immersion worked for me. I loooooove rice. White rice. (Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know the brown stuff is better. That’s not the point.) So any time I see a recipe involving rice I’m down with it. I’ve spent years learning the art of making lovely rice without burning it. The point of this recipe is to kind of burn it. We’ll see if I can hang.

What’s on your weekend menu? Fun, food, both? Do you have weekend food?

We’re going vegetarian for Lent. Or, to be more correct, pescatarian. We’ll still be eating the occasional fish or seafood item. But let’s back up a second. What is Lent?

Generally speaking, Lent is the 40 days before Easter. It begins on Ash Wednesday, the day after Fat Tuesday. During this season, Christians often give up a habit that stands in the way of their relationship with God. They may also add a practice or behavior that would enhance this relationship. We’re kind of doing both. In giving up meat we’re taking on the restraints of an a vegetarian diet. If you want to know all the details about Lent you can read more about it here.

We’ve decided to give up meat for several reasons.

It will be good for our bodies and good for the planet. While we’re young and healthy, it can’t hurt to cut down on the meat we eat. I already do Meatless Monday and we generally don’t eat meat for breakfast or lunch. So taking it out of dinner won’t be that much of a stretch. The raising of meat is also hard on the Earth, at least in the case of industrial meat production. God expects us to take care of the planet. While we don’t eat industrial meat, there’s still a need for all of us to consume less. Less in the case of meat and less overall. Just less.

It will be good practice for me as a cook. While my kitchen skills are just fine, taking up the practice of eating only vegetables will help me branch out in the kitchen. It’s easy to do in the summer when the market is brimming with tasty vegetables. A bit more difficult when you’re still in the root vegetable purgatory of late winter.

There’s some discipline involved. We are fortunate to not have to be very disciplined in what we eat around here. Our grocery budget is generous and I’m unwilling to cut corners on feeding the family. The absence of meat will surely save us money, but it will also force me to focus on real nutrition and a better meal plan than meat + two sides = dinner.

I mentioned that we’re going to keep some fish and seafood in our meals. This is not intend to be a way to wiggle around the commitment. It’s because we need to eat more fish. It’s been a goal of mine to work more seafood into our diet, but I haven’t focused on introducing seafood regularly at the dinner table. Lent is a good opportunity to do this.

Being prepared is half the battle so I’ve already worked up a list of things that I want to cook. I’ve got a menu plan just like any other week. I’ve checked out several top-rated vegetarian cookbooks from the library and I’ll be sharing information about those as we go through out Lenten journey.

I hope you’ll follow along with me as I work through this season. Use #40dayvegetarian. How are you observing Lent? In the past I’ve given up candy and almost always give up cursing. Who’s with me on that one?